Are you saying that you hesitate to escalate yourself, because they are dice still on the table? Or because you think that your opposition might get lucky now, when they roll more dice, robbing you of victory?

Both. Those are my points (1) and (2), though that simplifies (1) a bit (maybe too much).

I DO think that the Dogs vibe is very much that it's generally the losing party that escalates

Well, "losing" in the fiction can take some time to catch up to "losing" in terms of "dice we have in front of us but haven't used yet". The awkwardness I'm mentioning occurs during that gap. Like, y'know, I can see John's shitty dice, but he has his NPC offer a brilliant retort with the first few, and I think, "Man, Enos would just smack her when she said that!"

Now, maybe it's a good thing that the game is challenging me to instead come up with an effective verbal response, and delay or obviate the smacking. That sounds like the kind of challenge I could learn to enjoy. At the moment, though, it's slowing down response time a bit more than I'd like.

I get you now! Yeah, that's funny how the dice on the table can disconnect from how the conflict may feel at the moment.

I wonder if you're overthinking it, really, though. I think I personally would escalate either when a) I have no other recourse, and I can't bear to Give, or when b) it feels appropriate fiction-wise to do so. Whichever happens first.

Because, when you escalate even though you're in the lead dice-wise, unless you're escalating into an arena you're much weaker in than the opponent, you're not losing any ground. You're still "ahead" by just as much as you were before, although now everyone's got more dice. And your opponent could have brought those dice in at any time themselves, so you're not really making things worse for yourself in any sense.

This makes me think about two things, which may or may not be true:

1) It's interesting that escalating can have the side effect of drawing out a conflict, as opposed to ending it more quickly.

2) The Afraid escalation rules give you an advantage if you escalate first, before your opponent. That's interesting in the light of this discussion, to me!

The most awkward part of resolution I find is when you're Seeing and you want to bring in a trait to use. You have to narrate something to bring in the Trait... but you can't decide fully what to narrate until you know what the dice have rolled. A couple of times I knew what I wanted to do, but when the dice rolled too low (or too high!) I had to change my idea before I could narrate. That certainly introduces a weird hiccup.

I've encountered and posted about that same issue in Seeing when everything depends on the future. What it boiled down to was that you either aren't bothered by the backtracking, or go ahead and roll dice first if you're seeing.

Enos had decided early on that Gerber was the problem. I was pretty committed to having Enos engineer his demise, and was looking forward to finding out whether or not that was actually the right move. When Gerber burned Cyrus's hand with his demonic touch, I got my answer. This was a mixed bag: mild letdown because the moral suspense was over before the final conflict(s), but a particularly cool way to answer my question. If Gerber had merely died in battle and left everything ambiguous, the game would have left a very different aftertaste.

We were running short on time, and with the scale of the turmoil being what it was, some high drama worked perfectly for a frenzied climax. My only complaint with the rush to wrap up is that the chain of consequence and drama was a little weak between (a) Cyrus's directive to Richard to douse Gerber in consecrated earth, and my decision to have Enos muster the Mountain People against Gerber's flock, and (b) the ultimate defeat of the badguys. Paul and I didn't really have to make any decisions during that phase, we just got to see which NPCs would beat which other NPCs.

I assume if we'd had more time, we each would have worked in a mechanical conflict somewhere. We wound up finding a pretty satisfying substitute, though -- Paul and I went high on the color contributions. I even briefly grabbed some GM tasks, describing NPCs and timing of events and atmospheric stuff (though mostly I stuck to "and here's what Enos is doing at that moment!").

It was very satisfying to see how all the disparate threads resolved. The summary/epilogue really recorded a huge upheaval in so many lives. And, thanks to all those relationships John worked in, they all mattered to me. I left the game with my mind still wrapped around the fiction, wanting to let it simmer for a bit before dealing with the real world again. Good times!

And, although, due to time constraints we had to turn to something more collaborative storytelling for the final scene, it felt very appropriate. John did some skillful "say yes or roll the dice", but without letting us off too easy. And we both chipped in some nice details. It was a satisfying conclusion!

I definitely hope to revisit the town someday, as the legend that's bound to grow up over the haunted mines after the Dogs shut them down and collapsed the entrance will be interesting. All that cursed silver, inhabited by Gerber's demonic rage!

I wonder if the sequel is going to be a D&D game? Ha!

I also hope I get to play Dogs again sometime soon, although it will probably be with my card rules, unless I can somehow get my hands on that many dice. I might work in some of your rule changes, though, John--those sheets you posted are amazing.